Alien Autonomous Edge Server Guide

Getting started

This guide will help you quickly get an Alien reader up and reading tags on Rifidi Edge. The supported Alien readers are the 9800, the 9900, the 8800, and the 9600. Other versions haven't been tested, but may still work.

• Start the edge server and the edge client. Connect the client to the server.
• Right click on the 'Edge Server' icon in the 'Edge Server View' and select 'New Reader'.
• Select 'Alien' from the drop-down and click 'Next'.
• Type in the IP and port of the reader you wish to in their respective boxes. If you are using an emulated Alien, you can check this in the emulator itself. If you are connecting to a physical reader, you might need to use the discovery tool in the Alien software to find out what the IP and port are if you don't know them offhand.
• Set the username and password of the reader. The default is 'alien' and 'password', respectively.
• Select the reconnect interval (in milliseconds). If you want the Edge Server to keep trying to connect if the reader loses connection while running or if it can't connect to start with, you can set this value to what you want (in milliseconds). If you are unsure, you can just leave it at the default 500.
• Select the maximum number of times the server will try to connect to an unresponsive reader. -1 means it will keep going until it gets a connection. To turn this feature off, set it to 0.

Setting up an Alien Autonomous server

To read Autonomously, the Alien requires an autonomous server be set up. If you are unsure of how the Alien Autonomous mode works, consult the Alien documentation.

• Right click on the 'Edge Server' icon in the 'Edge Server View' and select 'New Reader'.
• Select 'Alien Autonomous' from the drop-down and click 'Next'.
• Type in the name you want the reader to show up as on the window, the number of readers you want to be able to connect to the autonomous server concurrently, and set up the port you want the server to listen on on the local machine, then press 'Finish'.

Reading Tags

Now that the reader is set up, its time to actually connect to it and read some tags.

• First, click on the reader icon that has appeared under the 'Edge Server'. It probably looks something like 'Alien_1'. Now look at the 'properties' tab at the bottom. There are many properties here, some of which can be adjusted. If you wish to adjust a property, type in the new value you want, press 'enter', then right click on the reader and select 'Commit Property Changes'. If you wish to learn more about a specific property, consult the Alien documentation.
• Right click the reader and press 'create session'. If the IP is correct and the reader is turned on, the session should go to 'green'. If something is wrong, it will stay yellow or go back to red. Check and make sure the IP and port are correct and the reader is turned on if you have trouble connecting.
• Now go to the bottom left window, the 'Command View'. Right click on the 'Alien-Push-Start' folder and click 'create command template'.
• Click on the command you just created, and set the options you wish in the same way you set the reader properties (just with the command instead). You will need to set the AutoStopTimer value (check the Alien documentation if you wish to know more on how the Autonomous mode works), and you will also have to set the IP and port of the machine the autonomous listener server you created is on.
• Now right click on the session you created under the reader and press 'submit job'. Select the 'Alien-Push-Start' job you created, select 'One Time Execution', and press 'Finish'.
• Congratulations! You are now reading tags from an Alien reader.